Teflon Man
by gloryblastit
Summary: Craig always pretended that things were okay, but with his new drug addiction derailing his music career, it's time for him to face the demons.
1. Chapter 1

-1Joey sighed, sat down at his old kitchen table in his new house and almost felt like crying. They'd called him about Craig, Ellie and Snake. Did he know what Craig was up to in Vancouver, on the tour, in Toronto? Did he know?

Joey shook his head. Took a sip of the lukewarm cup of coffee at his hand, grimaced, drank more anyway. No. he hadn't known. When he did speak to Craig, which was more and more infrequently, he asked about his medication and how things were going and Craig always said fine and he sounded fine so just how was he to know?

Angela was out playing in the new yard. This child seemed okay. She smiled, she played, she made friends, she could hardly remember her mother. How old had Angie been when Julia died? One and a half? Two? What could a kid remember from those ages? Joey was glad of that, glad she couldn't remember, glad it was one less traumatic event for her.

It all lay before him, finding a babysitter for Ang, calling and making plane reservations for Craig, finding a rehab place somewhere, somehow, with his shrinking income and rising costs. But that was par for the course with Craig. Craig had always cost him more than he could afford.

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It was the best high being on stage. Better than the first rush of his manic phase his junior year, better than drinking, better than coke even. Connecting with the audience like that, when he could feel that they were with him, it was like a thousand lines of coke all at once. There was also a dark side to it, an underside, when things didn't go right, when the audience wasn't on his wavelength. He felt almost psychic on stage, sensing their mood. It hurt him when they were hostile, when the audience seemed to judge him and find him to be a fraud. Like someone spitting in his face, or punching him in the stomach.

He sat on the ugly green couch backstage, holding a tissue to catch the blood running out of his nose, listening to everyone discuss him like he wasn't even there, and he thought about the turn this time on stage had taken.

"We should call an ambulance," That was the manager of this club, a short balding guy with blinky little blue eyes.

"No, he'll be fine, it's stopping," This was Adam from "Taking Back Sunday".

"I'm calling Joey," Ellie said in her shrill, decisive way.

"Who's Joey?" Adam said.

"His step-dad,"

Yeah, this time it had been the worst. Worse than that wedding when Ellie threw a drumstick at Manny's head, worse than the time Spinner started drumming to a completely different song than the one they were actually playing. Because he had this audience, at first, he had them. He was about to pull them along on the high when he felt it all change, felt their eyes on him in a different way, felt the blood not just trickling from his nose but gushing…

He could hear snatches of Ellie's conversation with Joey, through the roar of the headache and the thumping of his heart.

"It's Craig…something's wrong…"

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He made all his calls, all his reservations with money he didn't have. Angie came running in, her eyes watering, her cheeks red.

"Hi, daddy,"

"Hello sweetheart," She kissed his cheek and ran off to explore new things, new rooms, new places.

Joey finished off the coffee and debated making his final call. He had a fallback person, too, like Craig had him. He had someone to go to when things got too tough but it was getting harder and harder to make that call. He had to. He had no choice. He could never afford one day in this swanky rehab place he had booked, never mind the 30 days or so it would take, or 90, he didn't know. In fact he couldn't even afford the plane ticket to get Craig back here.

Sigh, again. Closed his eyes and wished this would go away, this never ending bump in the road that was his adult life. Times like this, Craig addicted to coke, his business just barely treading water, it all came back and piled up on him. Caitlyn leaving. Julia dying. Craig's problems with Albert, with mental illness, with Ashley, and now this? There were no choices. He had to do what must be done, he simply had to go forward, and sitting here feeling sorry for himself wouldn't help. He picked up the phone and dialed the number he knew so well.

"Hello, Caitlyn Ryan,"

"Hi, Caitlyn. It's Joey,"

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The blood had stopped, or nearly. He could smell that copper blood smell, and it made him feel sick. The manager of the place had left, Adam went back onstage, Craig could hear them starting their set. Ellie was off the phone with Joey and now she was kneeling in front of him.

"Craig. Craig,"

"Yeah?" He looked at her, shiny long red hair, little green eyes. So pretty, really, delicate like a lot of red-heads were but he's just never felt that way about her. His stomach turned when he remembered how he tried to trick her into not calling Joey when she first threatened it, playing with her emotions. That was exactly what he was doing, what he'd done his whole life, manipulated people like they had manipulated him. He breathed through his mouth so he wouldn't have to smell the blood so strong. He'd always manipulated people.

"Joey said he's going to make a plane reservation for you for tomorrow, and he'll call you with the information about it. Uh, um, do you want to go to the hospital?"

"No," he said it immediately, although he didn't know if she was talking about the hospital in Toronto or a rehab place. He didn't want to go to either .

"Okay," she said, like she had given up on him. He guessed she had and was almost glad for it. She'd be better off.

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Joey glanced out the window, curtain-less, and into the bright blue day. Craig would be coming back almost as traumatically as when he had run away back in ninth grade. Joey's thoughts flashed back to Rick, a kid he had known when he went to junior high, remembered the beating he had witnessed. Remembered Craig in the cemetery that night, angry and crying at the same time.

Caitlyn had agreed to finance the whole thing, the plane ticket, the rehab stint, even the babysitter fee for leaving Angie for a few hours. And she had sounded crystal clear right in his ear even though she was in L.A. He couldn't stop thanking her, almost compulsively he thanked her, felt like a beggar taking her money but he had to.

"Joey," she had said, and he could tell by her tone that she was about to tell him something she felt he didn't know, and should have known.

"Yeah?" His response sounded so weary it surprised him, weary and old, like some gray man rotting in a nursing home somewhere.

"Joey, this rehab idea, it might help Craig but it might not. It might just be a temporary solution, a band-aid. You need to think of more lasting ways to help him,"

He was silent. She was probably right, a fast track through rehab might not even help him with this addiction, never mind what lead to it, or what was feeding it. She was probably right. And in the way of things, when weariness and worry replace sleep, if she was right then he had to be wrong. He'd been wrong all these years, thinking Craig was okay because he was with him now and not Albert, that he was okay because he was on psych meds now and not manic, and he would have thought that again. He's okay because he went through rehab and he isn't doing cocaine now. Shit.

"Yeah, I guess you're right,"

So it was all set, every detail, even down to Snake going to the airport to make sure Craig got on the plane. Joey shrugged into his jacket, grabbed his keys, and headed out.

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Driving through the crystal clear day, blue gray road disappearing under his tires, trees slipping by in the slip stream, Joey tried not to think. Tried not to think that he had failed, that he had raised a drug addict. He had only had him since he was 14. Did he really screw him up that much in 4 years?

It was easy to push the blame off onto Albert, even Julia for dying and for whatever faulty genes she may have passed on to him. Easy way out, maybe. What was his part to own in this?

He drove up to the airport parking lot, wide and treeless, asphalt desert. Cars gleaming in the sun, making his eyes water. His footsteps sounded oddly loud and echo-ey. Was he actually nervous about seeing Craig again? Was that fear he felt in his bloodstream, traveling along the veins and to his heart? Was it really?

Inside, that funny smell of rug cleaners and traveler's dust, he knew he was afraid. Felt trepidation humming along his nerve endings. He dug out the slip of paper with the gate number on it and headed that way to wait.

The passengers came off the plane in a line and Joey scanned their faces for the familiar one, and finally he saw him.

Craig walked towards him looking hollow eyed, gaunt, his clothes rumpled and dirty. His eyes were blood shot and he kept sniffling and swiping at his nose with his sleeve.

"Craig," Joey said, trying not to look angry, but he felt anger mixed in with pity. Craig swallowed hard, rubbed his nose again, and looked down.

"Hey, Joey," His eyes were fixed firmly on the ground.


	2. Chapter 2

The other passengers, other people, flowed around them like water.

"It's good to see you," Joey said, and Craig lifted his head and looked at him, and Joey thought one thing: broken.

He kept flashing back. He'd said nearly the same thing to him at Spike's birthday party all those years ago, and Craig had been as unhappy and uncomfortable then as he was now.

Joey hugged him and felt Craig stiffen and pull away even as he patted his back, and he realized he had always pulled away from every touch, every hug.

"Okay, let's go," Joey said, letting him go, and Craig looked down at the floor again.

"Joey?"

They were walking toward the baggage pick-up and Joey had been concentrating on the patterns the sun made on the floor.

"Yeah?"

"Are, um, are we going home first or to the, that place?"

"We're going right there,"

"Oh,"

In the car, the sun blazing on everything, there wasn't anything to say. Craig was looking out the window and Joey drove.

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It looked like a hospital because it was, once.

"Well, we're here," Joey said, and Craig looked over at the building, eyes wide.

Inside, gray rugs and subdued lighting, a woman at a desk behind a wall and a window. A row of chairs against the opposite wall, and Craig slumped in one of them. Joey went over to the window and the woman looked up, politely questioning.

"Uh, hi. I'm here to check in. Not me, my son,"

"His name?" Her voice was soft, professional, and for some reason it put Joey more at ease.

"Craig Manning,"

She rifled through some papers and nodded.

"Alright. Just have a seat, Mr. Manning. It'll be a minute,"

She had called him Mr. Manning and he didn't correct her, but he saw the flash of anger in Craig's eyes when she said that. Then it was gone.

He sat in a chair near Craig to wait, and neither of them spoke. Not a word.

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He was in the office of a woman, the administrator? A nurse, a social worker? All three? Joey was uncertain of her title, but she wore a wool suit the color of oatmeal and her hair was pulled back but some had escaped, making her look almost sexy.

Someone else had taken Craig, and he'd looked back at Joey with a sort of desperation he'd last seen in his eyes around the time Albert had died.

"Mr. Manning…" she began.

"It's Jeremiah. Joey Jeremiah," he said, "Craig's my step-son,"

"Oh. I'm sorry. Mr. Jeremiah, I'd like to go over some information about Craig with you. It's helpful when we have a history about our patients,"

Joey nodded, licked his lips, felt nervous.

"What illegal drugs does he take, that you know of?"

"Cocaine," It sounded awful. He thought of swanky yuppies from the 80's snorting off of mirrors with rolled up one hundred dollar bills.

"Anything else?"

Joey shook his head. Not that he knew of.

"Does he drink alcohol?"

"I don't know,"

"Is he on any prescription medications?"

"Yeah. Lithium,"

"He's bipolar?"

"Yeah,"

She nodded, jotted his answers down, didn't look too surprised.

"That's very common," she said, "for our patients to have a diagnosed mental illness. We call it dual diagnosis,"

It might be common for her, Joey thought, but he was having a tough time dealing with it. One diagnosis was bad enough.

"Does he have a history of abuse?"

"Abuse? Yeah," This question surprised him, though maybe it shouldn't have.

"Physical or sexual abuse, or both?"

Joey closed his eyes, heard the sounds of the cars rushing by on the road nearby. He was tired. He was tired of dealing with this.

"Just physical. His father, his father beat him,"

She nodded slightly, jotted it all down.

"Is Craig violent? Does he have a history of being violent?"

"No, he's not," Joey started, then paused, "well he was once, before he was first hospitalized for the bipolar,"

Joey swallowed, suddenly his mouth felt dry. The light was taking on that soft gold late afternoon hue.


	3. Chapter 3

Craig listened as the woman explained how things worked here, tried to nod in all the right places, but her words were losing meaning in certain places. He felt edgy and nervous and almost angry, like a pre-anger that just simmered below his consciousness. What it boiled down to was he had to do what they wanted when they wanted him to do it.

'You want to just keep doing cocaine?' his own voice asked in his head. And no, he supposed he didn't. He couldn't just keep doing it, spending all that money on it and always worrying about having it and burning out his sinuses and having a heart attack. He couldn't do that.

He'd had more freedom than he had ever had in Vancouver, writing his music and playing the shows. When he had lived with Albert, God he couldn't do anything. He'd been so young and Albert was so controlling. It was better with Joey but there were still all these rules, and high school, every second of the day governed by those stupid bells. He had been so tired of the 'go here and do this now' life and when he was free of it at last what did he do? Fuck it up.

"I'll show you your room," the woman said, and he followed her down a hall to a dorm type room, more dorm like than hospital like. He'd sort of kept picturing this place like the hospital, even imagined the same room he'd had. It was nothing like that.

"Well, I'll let you settle in," she said, and left, shutting the door softly behind her.

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Joey was ready to go, all the administrator's questions answered, every loose end neatly tied in a bow. The day was still heartbreakingly blue.

"Can I see him before I go?" Joey said, shrugging into his lightweight jacket. The woman shook her head.

"No, I'm sorry. He'll call in a few days when he can but right now he can't see anyone,"

Joey blinked, surprised by how hurt he felt, but he supposed if that's the way they did things…

"Alright then," he said, and walked slowly out.

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He wanted to do cocaine. Coke. One nice line. Jesus, what was wrong with him? Craig punched his leg in frustration, wincing as the muscle knotted under his fist. He thought of Ellie cutting herself, slashing at her white skin with razor blades and protractor points and scissors. He's always thought that behavior was strange and creepy and he really didn't understand it. Why would you want to hurt yourself? He'd been hurt enough, all those beatings, that he couldn't imagine cutting himself. The hurtful things he did, like the drugs, had a pleasurable positive side. Where was the pleasure in slashing at your own body with sharp objects? Endorphins, maybe. The body's response to physical pain, the releasing of natural pain killers, maybe. And he knew about that from when his father had hurt him, how he'd felt afterward, almost high through the glaze of pain. But that was nothing to seek out, that wasn't a feeling he would attempt to create. Ellie, boy. He shook his head.

He laid on the bed, there was nothing to do right now. There wasn't much to do here. Meals. Therapy. Groups. The physical detoxing from cocaine wasn't that bad, he didn't even get any nice pharmacuticals to ease the fall.

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Driving again, his hands steady on the wheel. Joey thought about what Caitlin had said. Rehab might not be a permanent solution, probably wouldn't be.

'Life was not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced,' Some random quote from a half remembered philosophy class in college or something printed on the back of a beer bottle, who knew, and it didn't help him anyway. Life was a series of problems to be solved, or at least dealt with. Caitlin being in L.A. even though he was still in love with her and may always be, Craig and his drug use, Angie and whatever problems she'd throw at him.

He drove on, the road unwinding before him, and for just a moment he tried to put it all out of his head, some Zen exercise in relaxation. Just put it all out of his head and focus only on what was in front of him, the blue/gray road, the trees blending into a single green line, the song on the radio. R.E.M., he was quite sure. Losing my religion.


	4. Chapter 4

A week later and Craig called him.

"Joey,"

"Hi. How are you?"

"Fine. How are you? How's Ang?"

It was no answer, his fine. It was small talk. But Joey was okay with that. It was just a way to communicate. So he told him about the new house and Ang's new school and the like.

"Have you talked to anyone else?" Joey said.

"Like who?"

"Like Ellie, Marco, Ashley?" He realized he only knew the high school friends that Craig hadn't seen for nearly a year before this gig in Toronto. Who was it he was hanging out with in Vancouver?

"No," Terse, forbidding. Sore spot. He supposed Craig had burned some bridges.

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"How is he?" Caitlin, the long distance as nothing with the clear connection.

"I don't know. Not too good," She laughed, surprising him.

"Joey, he's in rehab, how good do you expect him to be?"

"I guess you're right,"

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Up late nights, drinking too much coffee or tea or wine, wishing for some nice little addiction of his own to take his mind off of things. No such luck. He couldn't get around the thoughts of his own culpability. Craig had done the coke of his own free will. It wasn't his fault.

Maybe he should have got him counseling when he first moved in with him, certainly when his father had died. Maybe Craig had all these undealt with issues and he, as the adult, should have foreseen that. Jesus, his father had beaten him, for years! He was just supposed to forget it? Both his parents died by the time he was 14...and he had him and Angela, a step-father and half-sister, but it didn't make up for the trauma. What an emotional wreck Craig was, and he'd just let him go like nothing was wrong. Even the bipolar, Ashley got him to go to Ellie's group, which obviously hadn't been enough.

The guilt made it hard to breath. He hadn't dealt with any of it, hadn't helped Craig through the landmine of his emotions. And once they fast tracked him through rehab, which he was more convinced wouldn't be any sort of permanent solution, what would he do then?

Dark night, dark thoughts. He knew what would happen. Craig would go back to the rock star life and back to drugs, and he could OD and die and all his chances would be gone.

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30 days and it was done. The 30 day mark was nearing. Joey visited Craig in the room set aside for that purpose, and he could see Craig had gained weight, wasn't quite so gaunt. He reminded him of how he had looked in high school, more and more.

"So, you're almost out of here," Joey said, and tried on a smile that didn't quite fit.

"Yep,"

He wanted to order Craig to stay with him, to not get sucked up into that fast lane life right away. But Craig was 19, free to do as he chose. He'd have to word it in a less threatening way.

"When you get out, would you like to stay with Ang and me for awhile? We've missed you," It was true. The pause, the beat of silence. _Please, Julia, let him stay. Let me have another chance._

"Okay,"


End file.
